A Long Weekend in Toronto

Mix equal parts East Germany and the United States and you might get something like Canada. The main reason I keep crossing the border is that Canada reminds me of home. Many Canadians have the pale colouring and fine hair of Nordic people, and they get excited about winter sports, hunting, black-fly-infested cabins and other perverse but familiar pastimes.

Like home, Canada is half empty, the weather can be forbidding and the seasons swing between extremes of light and dark. Even the drab concrete buildings look much more like Northern Europe than anything you will find in the US. Canadians, like us, love anecdotes about their malfunctioning safety net, yet tolerate high taxes and vaguely believe in universal health care and social democracy.

Perhaps my sample is biased, but every Canadian I have met has been well-spoken, witty and deliciously understated in a way rare south of the border, and so friendly that I feel like a long-lost relative. Their progressive immigration policy has produced an exuberant ethnic mix. On Canada Day in Vancouver last summer we watched friendly throngs of every background painting red maple leaves on each other's cheeks in a light drizzle. Most Canadians I know are first- or second-generation immigrants.

So I was in Toronto for the third time in just over a year. In Canada fusion food is no restaurant gimmick. In Ottawa my husband's elderly relatives once laid out a memorable family meal of sushi, hernekeitto (Finnish pea soup) and hummus on ruisleipä, rye bread. This time our Finnish friends welcomed us with Thai food, Greek bread, olives, tzatziki and Finnish chocolates, the cultural mosaic in practice. Nobody could tell me what typical Canadian food is like; surely people there do not live on poutine and beavertails alone.

On my last visit to Toronto, last autumn, I was stuck in my hotel room, frantically trying to meet work deadlines. The only respite came when my Dutch colleague, who used to supplement his student income by piloting yachts in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, persuaded us to rent a sailboat and spend a marvellous, unforgettable September Sunday on Lake Ontario.

This time I had the leisure to stroll the ethnic neighbourhoods, with bubble tea and Korean barbecue. We loved Danforth Avenue, its Greek bakeries and well-stocked kitchen shops. In Chinatown on East Gerrard Street people were hoarding fresh blue crabs, and we tried to decipher Vietnamese signs and took in the pungent smells of Chinese pharmacies. Unable to lunch at a dozen places, a Cambodian one among them, we settled for a delicious Portuguese meal of octopus, bacalhau and gorgeous crusty bread, toasted the end of the rain with espresso on the terrace of Caffe Diplomatico and picked up an Easter colomba for breakfast.

I love to explore the ethnic neighbourhoods of any city I happen to visit, but hardly ever do I come across one where my own heritage is represented. I have heard about the Finnish settlements of Thunder Bay and Sudbury in Canada, but have never visited those places. Last summer, however, we were pleasantly surprised by tiny Astoria in Oregon, and closer to home, Little Finland in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, has nearly lost its Finnish flavour over time. Toronto still teems with Finns, with a Finnish grocery, bakery, retirement home and church. Over the weekend I got to know the Finnish immigrant community a bit better. After the Palm Sunday service the Finnish-Canadian ladies of the Agricola Lutheran church served homemade lihasoppa (meat soup), pulla, karjalanpiirakat and mämmi. I was in Finnish food heaven.

(It would be lovely if somewhere near here there were a neighbourhood where I could sometimes go and buy fresh pulla, freshly baked rye bread, HK sausage and liver sausage, Karelian pies, rye flakes, Fazer Blue and the week's women's magazines. I go to Finland pretty often and we have a constant stream of visitors from home, so in principle I can get all of it, but that does not stop me from missing, now and then, a couple of blocks that belong to my own taciturn, pale-eyed, snub-nosed people dressed in shell suits, with walking poles and leggings. In Toronto, in fact, I did see a fair-haired woman at a supermarket checkout in a bright blue Suomi beanie.)

Before the airport I picked up some wickedly delicious fudge from Quebec and sauvignon blanc from British Columbia. I wish I could have stayed to explore Ontario's wineries and catch Canada's Worst Handyman on TV. I am still heartbroken that I missed Canada's Worst Driver last year.